‘Where now is the cross and the branches’ shade
Over my poor mother’s grave!’
She murmured in a low voice.
‘That’s not as it is in Pushkin,’ I observed.
‘But I should like to have been Tatiana,’ she went on, in the same
dreamy tone. ‘Tell me a story,’ she suddenly added eagerly.
But I was not in a mood for telling stories. I was watching her, all
bathed in the bright sunshine, all peace and gentleness. Everything was
joyously radiant about us, below, and above us--sky, earth, and waters;
the very air seemed saturated with brilliant light.
‘Look, how beautiful!’ I said, unconsciously sinking my voice.
‘Yes, it is beautiful,’ she answered just as softly, not looking at me.
‘If only you and I were birds--how we would soar, how we would fly.…
We’d simply plunge into that blue.… But we’re not birds.’
‘But we may grow wings,’ I rejoined.
‘How so?’
‘Live a little longer--and you’ll find out. There are feelings that
lift us above the earth. Don’t trouble yourself, you will have wings.’
‘Have you had them?’
‘How shall I say … I think up till now I never have taken flight.’
Acia grew pensive once more. I bent a little towards her.
‘Can you waltz?’ she asked me suddenly.
‘Yes,’ I answered, rather puzzled.
‘Well, come along then, come along.… I’ll ask my brother to play us a
waltz.… We’ll fancy we are flying, that our wings have grown.’
She ran into the house. I ran after her, and in a few minutes, we were
turning round and round the narrow little room, to the sweet strains of
Lanner. Acia waltzed splendidly, with enthusiasm. Something soft and
womanly suddenly peeped through the childish severity of her profile.
Long after, my arm kept the feeling of the contact of her soft waist,
long after I heard her quickened breathing close to my ear, long after
I was haunted by dark, immobile, almost closed eyes in a pale but eager
face, framed in by fluttering curls.
X
All that day passed most delightfully. We were as merry as children.
Acia was very sweet and simple. Gagin was delighted, as he watched her.
I went home late. When I had got out into the middle of the Rhine, I
asked the ferryman to let the boat float down with the current. The
old man pulled up his oars, and the majestic river bore us along.
As I looked about me, listened, brooded over recollections, I was
suddenly aware of a secret restlessness astir in my heart.… I lifted
my eyes skywards, but there was no peace even in the sky; studded with
stars, it seemed all moving, quivering, twinkling; I bent over to the
river--but even there, even in those cold dark depths, the stars were
trembling and glimmering; I seemed to feel an exciting quickening of
life on all sides--and a sense of alarm rose up within me too. I leaned
my elbows on the boat’s edge.… The whispering of the wind in my ears,
the soft gurgling of the water at the rudder worked on my nerves,
and the fresh breath of the river did not cool me; a nightingale
was singing on the bank, and stung me with the sweet poison of its
notes. Tears rose into my eyes, but they were not the tears of aimless
rapture.… What I was feeling was not the vague sense I had known of
late of all-embracing desire when the soul expands, resounds, when
it feels that it grasps all, loves all.… No! it was the thirst for
happiness aflame in me. I did not dare yet to call it by its name--but
happiness, happiness full and overflowing--that was what I wanted, that
was what I pined for.… The boat floated on, and the old ferryman sat
dozing as he leant on his oars.